Floor and car mat



Aug. 2, 1949. J. R. CALDWELL FLOOR AND CAR MAT Filed Feb. 17, 1949lllllj Patented Aug. 2, 1949 UNITED STATES -PATENT OFFICE FLOOR AND CARMAT James R. Caldwell, Wooster, Ohio, asslgnor to The Wooster RubberCompany, Wooster, Ohio, a

corporation Application February 17, 1949, Serial No. 76,869

2 Claims.

My present invention involves certain improvements in mats of the typecommonly in use today, as door mats for houses or the like, and alsouseful in automobiles for laying upon the carpeted floor of the car,either in front or in rear of the front seat, or both.

Mats of the class to which I refer above are usually made of resilientmaterial such as rubber or synthetic rubber, and are constructed so asto provide a series of recesses formed in the upper surface of the matby molding or equivalent processing which recesses'are produced by mainribs formed on the top surface of the mat and affording 'scraping partsfor facilitating the scraping of dirt or foreign material from the solesof the shoes. i E

The primary object of my invention has been to deal with a problemarising in the construction of mats of the class referred to which dueto bending may be caused to break at different places where the recessforming ribs are located In the carrying out of my invention therefore Ihave so designed the recessed portions of the mat provided by the mainrib on the top surface with peculiar reinforcing beads which extendalong the top of the main rib centrally thereof, and by providingreinforcing webs which extend cross wise of the recesses for reinforcingthe walls of the recesses formed by the rib against breakage underbending stresses either in the handling of the mats, or in the actualuse of the latter incident to foot pressure or the like.

An understanding of my invention will be had by referring to thefollowing detailed description and to the accompanying drawings, and inthe latter:

Figure 1 is a top plan view of a mat embodying my invention, therecessed formation of the top surface of the mat being partiallyillustrated only in order to bring out the novel features of myconstruction.

Figure 2 is a fragmentary detailed perspective view of a corner portionof the mat such as the lower right corner in Figure 1 bringing out moreclearly the detail formation of the rib, the reinforcing beads on thetop surfaces of the rib and the cross reinforcing web that spans orextends transversely of the recess section.

Figure 3 is a fragmentary sectional view taken about on the line 3-3 ofFigure l.

Figure 4 is a fragmentary sectional view taken on about the line 4-4 ofFigure 1.

Referring to my drawings showing a preferred embodiment of my inventionit will be noted that the body of the mat of the invention is designatednecessary reinforcing construction for the mat vjunction points of theribs 3 at such corners.

at l. This body is fairly thick and'of uniform thickness over the mainsection thereof which section is of the recessed formation previouslyreferred to. From the thick recessed body section of the mat the edgeportion of the mat slopes downwardly as seen best at 2 in Figures 3 and4 providing inclined portion that terminates at the exact edge portionof the mat body.

The recesses in the upper surface of the mat body l may be said to be ofsubstantially diamond shape and are preferably molded in the body in thecustomary manner.

The said recesses are designated at 2 and are formed by the main ribs 3which are all of the same depth or vertical thickness and establish thedepth of the recess as of a depth dimension vertically equal to thevertical thickness of the rib from their bases to their top surfaces.

It has been found in the construction of mats of the form described thusfar, notably with the shallow recesses created bythe ribs 3 that thereis a tendency of the ribs to break at the corner portions thereof in thedirection of the longer axis of the recesses 2. With the foregoing inmind I have made two provisions to-counteract the above tendency ofbreakage which provisions comprise the employment of narrow beads 4 onthe top of each of the ribs 3, which beads are much narrower than theWidth of the ribs and protrude upwardy a short distance from the topsurface of the ribs. The beads 4 intersect or cross each other at thecorners of the recesses! established by the The said beads 4 also affordadditional thickness of the rib cross section by reason of theirprojection upwardly from the top surfaces of the rib and thus give areinforcing function at said top surfaces, of an obvious nature. f

In addition to the employment of the beads 4 in my mat construction andfor the purpose of supplementally reinforcing the mat structure againstbreakage in the manner previously referred to are utilized webs 5 whichextend across the recesses 2 in the direction of the shorter diametersof said recesses. The webs 5 are more shallow in depth than the depth ofthe rib 3 but are fairly broad in formation so as to provide the whichas indicated above is desirable for affording an anti-breaking function.

Of course in the manufacture of my mat the mat body l, the ribs 3, thebeads 4 and the cross web 5 are made integral in the molding operationforv the article so that the mat comprises a unitary structure fullycompleted by the 3 vulcanizng final operation customarily used forproduction of articles of this character.

The provision of the parts 4 and 5 has been found to be quite effectiveto accomplish the desired results of protecting the mat body againstbreakage along the longitudinal axes of the recesses 2, under practicalconditions of use.

It is notable that' the Webs 5 are preferably of larger width than depthso as to form relatively wide though shallow reinforcing elements, andthe top planes or surfaces of the web 5 are not only in the same generalhorizontal plane but they are in a slightly lower plane than the planeof the top surfaces of the main ribs 3.

On the bottom of the mat body I may be provided parallel ribs 6 toslightly space portions of the body from the surface on which it rests.

Having thus described my invention. what I A claim as new and desire tosecure by Letters Patent of the United States, is:

1. As a new article of manufacture, a mat made of resilient materialcomprising a body formed with intersecting ribs projecting from itsupper surface to provide a series of juxtaposed recesses, said ribsbeing of the same depth and intersecting each other at spaced points,each rib being formed with an upwardly projecting integral bead of lesswidth and less depth than the rib, and reinforcing webs extending acrossthe recesses aforesaid on the bottoms thereof and integrally formed withthe mat material at the base portions of the recesses.

2. A mat as claimed in claim 1, in which the recesses are of generallydiamond shape with the ribs forming the walls thereof, and the webs areof 'less depth than the ribs and greater in width than the depth thereofso that their top surfaces lie in a plane lower than the top planes ofthe rib surfaces, said webs extending in a direction transverse to thelongitudinal axes of the recesses, and connecting corner portions of therecesses being at points of juncture of the ribs.

JAMES R. CALDWELL.

REFERENCES CITED The following referenlces are of record in the file ofthis patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 451,633 Chalmer May 5, 1891665,370 Parker Jan. 1, 1901 835,274 Burns Nov. 6, 1906

